The present invention relates generally to communication busses, and more particularly, to a multi-mode, multi-channel communication bus that is particularly well suited to provide communication between multiple application specific integrated circuits (ASICs).
All common commercial and military busses packetize large messages to control the amount of bus arbitration latency. Furthermore, conventional busses do not dynamically change the number of busses that are available to transfer data. Also, bus acquisition delays caused by bus arbitration latency in a packetized protocol regime is relatively high using conventional busses. Conventional busses do not allow multiple bus masters to coexist at the same time.
Therefore, it would be an advantage to have a communication bus that is dynamically reconfigurable to allow multiple bus masters to coexist at the same time and therefore improve bus acquisition delays. Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide for a multi-mode, multi-channel communication bus. It is a further objective of the present invention to provide for a multi-mode, multi-channel communication bus that provides for improved inter-ASIC communication.